On 2 Jun 1997, Mark Eichin wrote: > For some more perspective on the "interface" argument, go back and see > some of the flaming a year or two ago about the GNU "libmp" (multiple > precision integer math library.) See also the discussion of just a > week or three ago about a company shipping a commercial package that > uses GNU RCS underneath -- but since GNU RCS is built as a DLL (and > they ship sources for those changes, and gnu rcs itself) they don't > have to ship the program sources (and have allegedly run this past > the FSF for confirmation that it was OK....) Recall that RCS is > GPLed, not LGPLed.
Hm, that's very interesting. Someone I was talking with a time back used the example 'Putting GZIP in a dll and then linking to it still makes your code GPL'. But if the FSF says that it is okay to do that then it is okay to do that ;> The other neat GPL issue comes in with C++, you actually DO include instances of code in your program with inlines, templates, vtables and other things. Fortunately G++ is completely free if compiled and used with GNU's compiler, LGPL otherwise. I really must admit I find the GPL very cryptic, it's hard to say exactly what it means if you look at very small detail. I do think that it makes sense however that you should be able to put RCS in a dll and link to the dll. The debate around that is all based on the question of what is a derived work. One could even argue executing gzip in a pipeline makes other elements in the pipeline 'derived' somehow from gzip. The GPL just doesn't make that perfectly clear! Jason -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .